I need to bring to your attention the efforts of Carol Normandin-Parker, SchoolPower’s community campaign vice president.

For the last several years (and many more to come) Carol has been in charge of the education foundation’s Community Campaign, its annual fundraising outreach. Each year she sets a new goal for us and generally we raise between $300,000 and $400,000 every yeaer.

While SchoolPower has many mechanisms by which we raise money for Laguna’s public schools, the Community Campaign is by far the largest. While other events – dodgeball, dinner dance, etc. – have chairpersons for just a year or two, Carol has volunteered to lead the CC for 10 years! She doesn’t complain at the beginning of each year and look at the needs of her kids, or her parents, or the other stresses she might have in her life (and she has plenty) and determine whether she can take on the job. She just jumps in year after year and steers our course. And remember what she has to do – she is leading a group of SchoolPower trustees (who do complain about all our stresses) and somehow gets us to jump on the phone, call our friends or strangers here in Laguna Beach, and ask for money to support our schools.

I can assure you, this does not come naturally to most of us. Somehow she inspires us week after week, year after year, to just do it. Sure she bribes us with food, and pats us on the back plenty, but mostly she leads by example with an enthusiasm, energy and passion for the cause that drives us to do our best.